Writer's Block

One time for work, I watched a video about college students and writing. They interviewed a student with a New York accent, and she said that when she began writing she was always afraid of the "blank page." I never knew what this meant until I began writing an essay for work this last semester.

The Lesson:

This particular essay, I really struggled with beginning. I was afraid of something and for days I diagnosed myself with writer's block. I could not make myself sit down and write. Everything was distracting.

Writer's block is defined as "the condition of not being able to think of what to write or how to proceed with writing." I would add that writer's block also gives the writer a temporary case of some sort of attention deficit because everything seems more important and interesting than what you are writing.

On the weekend before the essay was due, I decided that I was going to force myself to begin writing. So I sat down. Then I saw that cursed blank page in front of me, and I was afraid. I called my mom. While talking to my mom I noticed that my toenail polish was chipped and as result painted them a nice dark red. Then I was hungry, so I ate my roommate's brownies that she left on the kitchen table.

By this time it was about midnight and there was still a nice blank white sheet in front of me. I decided to just write one paragraph no matter how it sounded. I began writing. I was amazed at how easily the words were coming to me. The writer's block was lifted and I was able to write. It wasn't a perfect draft, but I had managed to get down everything I wanted to say.

I write about this because being afraid of starting an essay happens to everyone. Writers just need to learn for themselves how to break that writer's block.

How we can apply this into our own writing:

• just start writing
• don't let the blank page scare you
• trick your self into writing by rewarding yourself (I find this works very well for myself)